


These Violent Delights

by OUATLovr



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Dark, Dubious Consent, Fucked Up, I'm Sorry, Incest, Insanity, Major Spoilers, Manipulative Relationship, Multi, Obsession, Poor Ellaria, Revenge, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Tragedy, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, spoilers for Episode: s07e03 The Queen's Justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:34:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OUATLovr/pseuds/OUATLovr
Summary: She didn't understand why Cersei had not carried out all of her threat. Post 7.03





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> So, this idea came to me after the last episode, and wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it out. My apologies.

Tyene died on the eve of their second day in the Black Cells, just as the torches were beginning to go out again.

She held out bravely before that; clinging to her last gasps of air, as blood invaded her nostrils and her eyes, as her body began to shake with the effort, and tears invaded the rivulets of blood running down her cheeks. Longer, Ellaria imagined, than Myrcella Lannister likely had, not knowing of the poison until it had already killed her.

It was both a blessing and a curse then, to know if one was poisoned.

She sat down at some point during the night, and Ellaria was grateful for that, relieved that she would not have to watch her daughter collapse before her eyes when she died. Relieved at the thought of Tyene merely leaning her head back and closing her eyes, the world dying around her.

But she could not reach for her daughter, could not even call out her name through the shallow gag Cersei had placed in her mouth, could only stare in horror as Tyene's breaths became more ragged through the gag, as she squirmed and fought against the restraints holding her back, despite Ellaria's silent begging that she not fight it.

Fighting it would only cause the poison to spread faster. She knew that as much, from her meticulous research of it, in Oberyn's carefully documented libraries.

Still, Tyene fought, bravely and futilely, and Ellaria could do nothing but watch in horror as her daughter died before her arms, Cersei's mocking, cruel words ringing through her ears, the only sound in the cell beyond Tyene's increasingly strangled gasps and Ellaria's own sobs.

They brought food, when they came to replace the torches lighting the gruesome scene, coming in on padded steps and forcing it down Ellaria's throat, as Cersei had threatened.

Ellaria tasted none of it, not the stale bread or flavorless stew, nor the blood from the fingers she bit as they jabbed at her throat until she gagged it down.

Her daughter watched her silently, body convulsing now, and Ellaria did not dare lose sight of her for a moment.

Cersei had meant this as a punishment, as revenge for the death of her daughter. She had not been there to hold Myrcella in her arms as she died, and so Ellaria would not be given the privilege either.

But she had not been forced to watch the life fade from her daughter's eyes, and Ellaria wondered what Jaime Lannister thought of this revenge. Whether he thought, as Cersei clearly did, that it was justice.

Ellaria tried to contemplate what would be justice against the Lannisters for her daughter's death, and could hear only the white noise in her mind, as she stared down at the sightless eyes of her daughter before her, unable to reach out and touch her.

~

"Maester Quyburn assured me that she should be dead by now," Cersei's over bright voice filled the cell, and Ellaria lifted her head, eyed the blonde haired she-demon as she entered the room. She stalked forward, came to a halt before Tyene's body, where it lay crumpled in the straw, too far away for Ellaria to touch.

Ellaria gave a strangled scream as Cersei reached out and ran deceptively gentle fingers through Tyene's dark, gritty locks. The woman tutted, turning to face Ellaria, reveling in the look of horror on Ellaria's face.

Horror that Cersei Lannister, the woman who had killed her daughter, should touch the girl before Ellaria.

Ellaria may have killed Cersei's daughter, may have reveled in the knowledge that Myrcella would die on a ship thousands of miles from her home, but she had never been that cruel.

"I thought so," Cersei said, voice still in that high, cheerful tone, and Ellaria wanted nothing more than to lunge at her, to rip that cheerful tongue out of her fucking throat, but she didn't move. Couldn't, and didn't know whether the bonds held her back, or the numbness that had begun to settle in her bones sometime during the second hour after Tyene's death.

She had ruined her wrists, while she watched her daughter bleed out before her eyes. They were scrubbed raw, and every time she had moved after splitting the skin, she had felt a new trickle of warm blood pour down into the straw beneath her feet.

The feeling was almost comforting, now, as Ellaria rubbed her wrists against their bonds, even knowing that they would not come loose.

Cersei eyed her for an uncomfortable long moment.

"I remember how I felt when my firstborn died," Cersei said, eyes shifting to the floor, then back up to Ellaria. "How horrifying it was, to watch the light fade from his eyes as he choked on poison, terrified, unable to even scream." She swallowed, the noise loud in the otherwise silent room. "I felt powerless. I felt as scared as I could see he was, for he was in pain and afraid and he was my son." Her chin wobbled. "And I felt furious, at whoever had killed him, for I knew he would die before he convulsed out the last of it. There was no surviving something that gruesome, that wicked, and done against a child."

Ellaria lifted a brow, thought of her sweet daughter, the life draining from her by the inches that night, and compared him in her mind to the monster she'd barely interacted with.

"Whoever had killed my son, I hated them more than I had ever hated anyone," Cersei whispered, shaking with remembered anger. "I hated them more than I hated Robert, after I realized he would never love me. I hated them more than I hated my father, for handing me over to that beast. And I hated them more than I ever hated Stannis Baratheon, for thinking he could take what didn't belong to him."

Ellaria let out a slow breath, then another, focusing her eyes on Cersei so that she would not be forced to look at the body that lay just behind the woman.

"That anger," Cersei continued, "drove me to do foolish things. I turned against that Imp thinking that my lover would do the same, only to see Jaime let Tyrion go long enough to kill our father. It drove me not to focus on the real problems within King's Landing and to hand over control of my kingdom to a bunch of barefoot heretics." She sniffed loudly, let it out slowly. "But with Myrcella, it was different."

She leaned forward, brushed at one of the tear tracks drying on Ellaria's cheek, and Ellaria flinched away, growling at her. Cersei smiled wanly.

"When Jaime brought my daughter back on that ship," Cersei murmured, "I felt hope for the first time in a very long time. Despite everything that had happened recently," she trailed her fingers down Ellaria's chin, and Ellaria forgot to breathe, with that woman touching her in the same loving manner she had touched Tyene before giving her the kiss of death, "my lover and my daughter were going to be there, beside me." She frowned. "And then you took that hope away from me."

Ellaria's eyes flitted to Tyene, then back.

Cersei didn't look impressed. She let go of Ellaria, pulled back.

"My darling girl was perfect," she said, voice trembling, "beautiful and untouched by all of the evils that had touched me as a child. And when I lost her, there was a pit, here," she gestured to her belly. "Nothing mattered quite as much, without her. The world was that much less bright. I could only stare at her, and wonder what she would like in ten years' time, when she had been buried beneath Casterly Rock beside my mother and her rotting bones."

Ellaria felt tears filling her eyes, felt her next breath come to her in a pained gasp as she remembered Cersei's words, that she would sit here and watch her daughter rot for the rest of her life.

"When my last son died," Cersei continued, paused, and then shrugged. "I felt nothing."

Ellaria stared at her in horror.

"I don't know," Cersei went on, "if that was because everything I could have felt had already been drained out of me with the loss of my first children, but it doesn't matter. Tommen was dead, Joffrey was dead, and Myrcella was dead. The only person I have left in the world is Jaime, and sometimes, when he looks at me..." she broke off, turned away.

The silence that filled the cell in the next moments allowed Ellaria the chance to breathe through her gag again, and Ellaria sucked in one breath, then another.

She hated this. She wished that Cersei would merely make good on her threats and leave Ellaria to stare at the broken corpse of her daughter, rather than force her to sit here and listen to all of the ways in which the two of them were similar.

In which Cersei wasn't the monster Ellaria preferred to think of her as.

"How does it feel for you?" Cersei asked.

Ellaria lifted her chin, refused to cry before this bitch. Refused to let her see how badly Cersei had already broken her.

Cersei just sat there, waiting, and Ellaria closed her eyes, felt a tear escape down her cheek, opened them again to see Cersei's face closer now than it had been to her own.

She had expected victory on that face. Had expected savage glee at the knowledge that Ellaria was suffering, just as Cersei intended.

But, for a long moment, there was only shock. Shock, and that hollow-eyed stare, and Ellaria glared right back at her, glared until the triumphant look on Cersei's face faded into something else.

"She won't rot for some time yet," Cersei said finally, and Ellaria lifted a brow at the way that she stammered out the words, expecting them to have more bite than they did.

Cersei eyed her in confusion for a moment, as if Ellaria was a particularly worthless pet, not reacting in the way Cersei had invested in her for, and Ellaria forced herself to look back, to not blink, and to push down the tears and bile.

Cersei Lannister fled the cell, the door slamming behind her a moment later.

She had forgotten to order the torches to be renewed, but Ellaria could still feel her daughter's body, sitting on the other side of the cell, the life gone from it, and now that she was alone, she allowed herself to weep.

~

"Where are you taking me?" Ellaria demanded, shrugging off their touches.

The guards ignored her, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arms as they dragged her along, and Ellaria shuddered, hating them for the fact that they were the first to touch her skin to their own after she had been released from that horrible prison, and not her darling daughter.

"The Queen summoned you," they informed her. "That is all you need to know."

She shrugged, couldn't bring herself to summon up the energy to care more than idly about what Cersei wanted with her, after all of her promises of keeping Ellaria down in that cell for the rest of her life, to watch her daughter's corpse rot.

It had been three days since Cersei's strange visit to her cell, four days since her daughter's death, and Ellaria had been forced to sit that cell as the guards forced her to eat and to stare at her daughter.

She had not slept, during that time. Had only eaten because she was forced to, pissing herself as she stared at her daughter's corpse, as it had the effect on her that Cersei had hoped it would, even if she had tried not to give in to that for as long as she had been able.

Tyene's corpse had begun to smell by the time the guards came for her, and Ellaria had inhaled the smell as much as she could before the stench made her sick, desperate to cling to whatever was left of her daughter.

When the guards untied her, she felled two of them, determined to make Cersei regret her decision to keep Ellaria fed and strong as she watched her daughter die.

She enjoyed the feel of their bones crunching beneath her hands, enjoyed the feel of a knife's hilt in her hands, enjoyed the short feeling of freedom as she rushed to her dead daughter's side, before the Mountain stepped into her cell.

The knife had clattered from her fingers, and Ellaria had forgotten to breathe, a migraine building up behind her eyes as she thought of what that creature had done to Oberyn, what he had done to Elia Martell.

She had shivered when the Mountain reached out for her, one abnormally large, gloved hand closing around her shoulder, and pressed closer to her daughter's corpse. Had hated herself for the small whimper which escaped her, as she huddled on the filthy floor of her cell and sobbed dryly into her daughter's neck.

Tyene stared up at her with sightless eyes as the Mountain dragged her to her feet, and Ellaria remembered herself only long enough to put up a token resistance, to scream against the gag still lodged in her mouth as she lunged for her daughter.

The Mountain hit her over the head, hard enough to daze but not to grant her sweet unconsciousness, and pushed her from the cell, where the guards were waiting outside, scowling at her, calling her the Dornish cunt.

She let them drag her along, didn't protest as they took her to Cersei Lannister's chambers, to the chambers belonging to the King of Westeros.

A serving girl, wearing her hair in the same short manner in which Cersei wore hers, opened the door, eyes wide as she took in Ellaria's disheveled appearance, the soldiers behind her.

Cersei was waiting inside, and the only reason that Ellaria stepped into that room, into the room of the woman who had ordered her lover killed just because he wished to defend her youngest brother, into the room of the woman who had murdered her child.

Cersei was waiting on her bed, sitting with all of the grace of a great cat, legs crossed, one hand nursing a goblet of Dornish red.

Ellaria frowned at that, wondered how long it would be before the Lannisters' supply of Dornish red to the capital ran out. She suddenly wanted very much to live to see it.

Cersei's smile looked rather forced. "Ellaria," she said, in a musical tone, as if she had not just forced Ellaria to spend days in the same room as her daughter's stinking corpse. "My, I hadn't realized how filthy you were, down there. The lighting must not have been as good as I thought."

Ellaria flinched.

Cersei smirked. "I was going to make good on my threat, you know. To leave you down there for the rest of your miserable days, to watch your daughter's corpse rot, until it was nothing more than a pile of sunken bones and skin on the ground."

Ellaria swallowed hard, lifted her chin. Reminded herself that Cersei had let her out of her cell for a reason, and if she was inclined to do so, Ellaria ought to take advantage in whatever way she could.

The only reason, she told herself, for why she had not already moved, was because the Mountain stood ominously in the corner of the room, watching their encounter with his blue lidded eyes.

"I watched my mother's corpse become like that, you see," Cersei continued, still smirking. "It was..." she shivered, "horrifying, to behold the woman who gave birth to me turn into such a thing. But," she moved to her feet, "I suppose, in the end, it's what we will all look like."

Ellaria tried to imagine Cersei's corpse, years from now, rotting and defiled, and pretended that it brought her some comfort.

Her daughter had died inches away from her, and Cersei had called it justice.

What she would do in return, Ellaria would call justice.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Cersei taunted. "Any threats upon my life for what I did to your darling girl? I know there was much I planned to say to you when my darling Myrcella was killed. I would have railed against you for an eternity for destroying such beauty."

Ellaria stayed silent.

If Oberyn were here, she thought, he would no longer hold for Cersei the small spark of pity he had once confessed to Ellaria he had for her. A woman in a man's world, he had said, with something like respect in his voice.

Oberyn would have lunged at her with his bare hands, and damn the Mountain where he stood beside her. He would have gone down fighting against that creature, unthinking beyond his thirst for revenge.

Except, Ellaria had tried that, in her own thirst for revenge. She had been unthinking, and stupid, and her revenge had not amounted to much, in the end. Had only stolen more from her.

"Ah, well," Cersei said, looking amused now. "Have I shocked you to silence?"

Ellaria contented herself with the look of confusion on Cersei's face when Ellaria had not bowed to her taunts in that cell, reminded herself that something about her had frightened Cersei Lannister, and merely grunted.

Cersei provided her with new clothes; Lannister reds that covered every spare bit of skin on her, and Ellaria hated them on sight.

Still, a part of her was glad enough to be out of the rags she had been wearing since Euron Greyjoy had captured her. They had begun to stink almost as badly as she did, and she was no longer Dornish enough to wear them.

A true Dornishwoman would have defied the gods to save her daughter. A true Dornishwoman would have refused to leave that Black Cell when it meant putting up with Cersei Lannister.

A true Dornishwoman would be plotting her revenge against Cersei even now, while Ellaria could think of nothing but the careful blankness in her mind, the numbness that had settled over her like a blanket.

Ellaria merely dressed in front of Cersei, shaking as she realized that it meant dressing in front of the Mountain, and promised her daughter's lifeless form that she would not do something stupid.

She would be smart, Ellaria told herself, as she turned back to Cersei at last. She would think like a Lannister, repay her debt to them in kind.

"Ah, that's better," Cersei said, clapping her hands together. "One would almost think you were civilized, looking at you now. Eh, Ser Gregor?"

The Mountain did not move, did not even blink. Cersei did not appear to mind.

Ellaria did not ask what Cersei wanted from her. Did not ask why Cersei had changed her mind about leaving Ellaria down in that cell to rot alongside her daughter's corpse. She would not give the bitch the satisfaction.

The serving girl from before stuck her head in, clearing her throat. "Your Grace?"

A flash of irritation crossed Cersei's features. "Yes, what is it?"

The girl hesitated. "Euron Greyjoy, Your Grace. He's requesting an audience with you."

Cersei raised a brow, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "overpriced cock," under her breath, and then, "What, now?"

The serving girl's eyes slanted to Ellaria, back to Cersei. "I can send him away if you like, Your Grace."

Cersei rolled her eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake, let him in."

The door opened, and the Lord of the Iron Islands stepped into Cersei's chambers, a grin on his face and blood still staining it, from his most recent battle.

Ellaria assumed that whatever had happened with Daenerys had not gone well, then. She couldn't summon up a modicum of concern for it, though.

She was beginning to wonder if she did not move to act against Cersei Lannister because she had died in that cell alongside her daughter.

Euron Greyjoy was the second most terrifying man Ellaria had ever encountered, and he had killed two of her lover's daughters. He came into the room like a worried housewife, dropping to one knee to plant a confident kiss on his betrothed's hand.

Cersei pulled her hand away as quickly as she was able, looking somewhere between disgusted and amused.

"The Mad King's daughter has been defeated at Casterly Rock, then?"

Euron nodded, eyes still upon Ellaria. He looked wickedly amused, and Ellaria wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off his face.

A fiery temper would be useless to her, just now. Cersei had waited some time to get her revenge upon Ellaria for her daughter; Ellaria could be patient, as well.

"Casterly Rock remains a Lannister stronghold," he informed her proudly. "I could not allow my future wife's home to be taken by barbarians and slaves."

Cersei hummed, clearly pleased, though little of it showed on her face. "Now, we need wait only for Jaime to return with that Tyrell gold," she told him.

Ellaria's eyes narrowed at the words, at the casual flippancy which Cersei gave them, saying them in front of one of her enemies, however worthless an enemy she now saw Ellaria as.

Euron's eyes flitted from Cersei to the woman standing at her side, and he stood to his feet, reaching out and snaking a hand through Ellaria's hair. She flinched away, but not quickly enough; his calloused fingers tangled in her hair and yanked, and she grimaced at the bile rising in her throat when he laughed.

"Let the bitch up early, have you?" he asked. "I confess, I rather enjoyed the thought of her punishment. Gave me quite a few ideas for my precious niece."

Cersei raised a brow, foot pushing Ellaria to her knees before the bed. "I didn't intend to let her up at all," she told Euron honestly. Or, Ellaria assumed it was honestly. "But she amuses me, and she can't amuse me from inside a dark cell."

Ah, amusement was what kept Ellaria from looking upon her daughter's body. Amusement, and not the flash of fear she had seen in the other woman's eyes, surely.

Euron laughed again. "And here I thought that was what your brother Jaime was here for."

Cersei's expression pinched. "Lord Euron," she said, tone clipped now, "You have won an amazing battle against the Dragon Queen's forces, but the war is not over yet. I thought I explained to you the significance of this when I told you that you would only have my hand when it was done."

Euron smirked, not fazed in the least. "I'll win this war for you, Your Grace," he told her, tone dripping with amusement, "and after that, I'll ensure you never think about your brother again."

Cersei glanced down at Ellaria dispassionately. "We'll see about that," she told him, and Ellaria wondered which part of that statement she was objecting to.

Euron merely hummed, gestured to Ellaria. "What are you going to do with her, then?"

Cersei paused. "I was thinking about letting the Mountain rape her, as he did her lover's sister," she said, and Ellaria shivered, all too aware of the Mountain's unblinking gaze upon her. "I watched him rape another woman, a woman had done me wrong, watched him split her open on his cock until she bled to death, and I enjoyed it very much."

There were not many things she could imagine left to frighten her, after what she had seen. Let Cersei leave her to rot in those cells, let Cersei kill her.

The Mountain still frightened her.

"But that would only garner her sympathy," Cersei continued. "And it does not fit the crime. So I thought of a better idea." She bent down until she was face to face with Ellaria. "You're going to be my pet," she told Ellaria, sounding delighted at the prospect. "You're going to go where I tell you to, and do everything I want of you, and the whole of Westeros is going to see you do so. The little dragon queen is going to see you do so."

Ellaria swallowed, licked dry lips. "If that is what Your Grace commands of me," she said, in the same monotone to which she had responded to everything since that dreaded gag had come off her lips.

Cersei had not allowed her to speak to her daughter, before killing her. Had muffled her screams as her daughter's light faded.

Nothing Ellaria said now was of consequence.

Cersei looked annoyed, at that. At Ellaria's passive acceptance. "It is," she hissed at her.

~

"Jaime!" Cersei darted forward, like a child being given a gift upon her nameday, taking her brother into her arms and laughing at the sight of him.

He had returned, from wherever it was Cersei had sent him to fight her battles for her. The Reach, Ellaria suspected, though Cersei had never said for certain.

She might have thought of Ellaria as nothing more than a broken doll now, as she had taunted many times since the day she had allowed Ellaria out of that cell, but clearly there was enough fire in her left to keep Cersei Lannister on her toes.

Ellaria just wondered if it was Dornish fire, anymore.

The twins pulled back from one another, and Cersei laughed a little, checking her brother over for injuries like a worried mother.

Ser Jaime's eyes shifted to Ellaria, where she stood just behind Cersei, to the swords hanging on the wall behind Cersei's head as an awful, gaudy decoration. He looked shaken at the sight of her, and Ellaria wondered if he had never expected to see her living again.

"What is she doing here?" Jaime asked, a cautious note in his voice.

Cersei smiled, glancing back at Ellaria with an expression that was disturbingly fond. "I want her here," she said, and Jaime frowned, looked for a moment as if he were about to protest.

Perhaps he understood the dangers of keeping alive the mother of a dead child, much less keeping her alive in the same room as her killer, Ellaria thought idly. Perhaps he wasn't as much of a fool as she had begun to suspect, and saw his sister somewhat for what she was.

And then, the protest died on his lips.

"Highgarden is yours," he said finally, and Cersei smiled, pleased. "The ruse worked, it seems. Olenna Tyrell is dead."

Ellaria closed her eyes, pretended that the news didn't bother her. It couldn't bother her; nothing should, after what had happened to her daughter.

How could she care about the fucking Tyrells or the fucking dragon queen when her daughter still lay rotting in the Black Cells beneath her feet?

Cersei smirked. "My champion," she said, tone low with lust, and Jaime's jaw ticked, his eyes searching out Ellaria once again. "We'll see how the Imp handles his queen's madness now."

"Any luck with the representative from the Iron Bank?" Jaime asked, and Ellaria's eyes narrowed. "We have the gold, but it was difficult enough to slip it past Tyrion, once he figured us out, and we lost some of it."

"Jaime," Cersei murmured, clearly uncaring, reaching out for him in a gesture that was far too telling, and Ellaria grimaced at the naked need on her face. It was perhaps the first human emotion she had seen on Cersei's face since the woman had asked why it was necessary for Ellaria to kill her daughter, and Ellaria almost looked away, at the sight of it.

She didn't.

Jaime grimaced, glanced at Ellaria again.

"It doesn't matter if she sees us, my lover," Cersei murmured, as if this were the cause of Jaime's discomfort. "She's nothing more than a plaything; who would care to hear what she has to say?"

Jaime let out a shuttered breath as his sister's hand ran through his hair, pulled his head toward her own. They breathed in sync for a moment, and there was something beautiful and terrible about watching them together like this. The casual intimacy, the hunger that knit them together in their mother's womb.

And then Jaime tried to pull away from his sister.

"I'm needed with the men, Cersei," he protested. "We need to plot our next move against Daenerys. Tyrion is with her. He's the only one who knew about the sewers."

Cersei hummed dismissively, moving forward with all of the grace of a cat and tangling herself around her brother. She reached out, pulling his face down to meet her own, lips touching the air in front of his.

Ellaria watched emotionlessly as, for the briefest moment, Jaime Lannister fought against her touch, eyes flitting to Ellaria and away, before he succumbed, kissing her with all of the fervor Oberyn had once reserved for Ellaria.

The thought made her sick. A bastardization of everything she and Oberyn had shared stood before her. Lovers, reveling in their victory. Revenge against the ones who had killed their children, the power to be together despite the stigma against them, allies against their only enemy left. Victory, while everything she had fought for had crumbled around her at her every attempt.

Fuck them. Fuck both of them for gaining everything Ellaria had lost.

"Worry about that later, Jaime," Cersei breathed against him, and Jaime shuddered. "Be with me, now."

"Cersei," Jaime's voice was breathless, needy. Ellaria wondered if he had forgotten she was there, forgotten that she stood in the corner of the room.

"Euron will destroy her fleet before she ever comes to King's Landing," Cersei assured him. "We have the Tyrell gold now, to pay off the Iron Bank. They will finance us, and the beggar king's sister will hobble back to the East, where the slavers will have done with the rest of her. I need you, my lover."

Jaime made a sound suspiciously like a keen. "Cersei..."

Cersei's hands reached down between the two of them, pulling at the drawstrings of Jaime's trousers. "I need you, Jaime," she whispered again, the words spinning witchcraft between the two of them.

Jaime let out a long breath, pulled her closer as his trousers fell around his ankles.

Cersei made a noise of gratitude, taking her brother's manhood into her hands and pumping it until it was half hard and leaking, guiding it inside of her with nimble fingers.

Ellaria grimaced and looked away, only to look back again when Cersei cleared her throat pointedly.

Jaime had his eyes closed, wasn't looking at Ellaria at all, and, judging by the blissful expression on his profile as Cersei pulled him back onto the bed, he had forgotten entirely about her presence here.

Cersei, however, was looking straight into Ellaria's eyes, over Jaime's head, a smirk playing at her lips before she bent down to kiss her brother again.

This wasn't about love, Ellaria thought suddenly. Not now, at least. Not while Cersei fucked her brother and kept eye contact with Ellaria the entire time, daring her to look away.

Ellaria wondered if Cersei had always been the one in control when the two of them fucked, if that was down to her preference or Jaime's.

And then she shook her head, because the thought she was entertaining at the back of her mind was a foolish one, and she should know that. These two were inseparable, in a horrifying sort of way, and nothing could come between them.

They had demonstrated that amply enough when they killed a king, blew up a sept of people, declared themselves together for everyone to know.

Still, as Jaime came in Cersei's cunt, she wondered.

~

"The Iron Bank is pleased to have done business with Your Grace," the representative said, eyes slanting down toward Ellaria for only a moment before going back up to Cersei.

Ellaria clenched her teeth in disgust. What sort of half man looked upon Cersei Lannister as a smart investment? For a Queen, or anything else?

Cersei reached out then, one hand petting through Ellaria's hair while the other clenched around the armrest of the Iron Throne.

Beside her, Jaime cleared his throat. "Her Grace is most appreciative of your support," he said, after a moment of strained silence. Cersei's hand dipped lower, brushing along Ellaria's face, to her lips.

Ellaria opened her mouth without thinking, taking a single digit between her lips, and the silence in the throne room grew suddenly more thick. The representative was staring at Ellaria openly now, as was Jaime.

It was silent enough to hear Cersei's breath stutter, above her, before the woman pushed her finger deeper into Ellaria's mouth, chuckled a cold, terrifying sound as Ellaria took it without protesting.

Whatever Cersei demanded of her, Ellaria remembered saying. Whatever it took.

~

From that moment in the throne room, Ellaria knew it was coming. Knew as she should have known that the Lannisters would repay their debt for Myrcella's murder, knew it as she did not know any longer if what was left of her could be considered living.

Tyene's body was still rotting in the Black Cells. Every time she found herself not thinking about it, every time a careful blankness filled her mind, Cersei would playfully remind her of that.

She watched impassively as Cersei fucked her brother with renewed vigor, every time there was a victory against Daenerys on the battlefield. As she looked up and met Ellaria's eyes when she came alongside her brother, enjoying the blankness of Ellaria's expression, enjoying how dead she felt.

She watched today as Jaime entered his chambers, saw his sister sitting on his bed, and almost sighed, but managed to restrain himself.

"I need to leave tonight, Cersei," he warned her, but Cersei's only response was a tinkling laugh as she stood to her feet, letting the silken robe Ellaria had earlier placed around her shoulders fall to the ground.

This time, Jaime groaned, moving forward and pulling his sister in for a kiss, pushing her down onto the bed and kissing her again and again. He took her hardened nipples into his mouth, one after the other, sucking on them with all of the abandon of a true lover.

Ellaria's own nipples ached just watching them, and she blinked, surprised that her body still lived enough to feel even that, watching the two people she detested most in the world make love to one another.

Jaime reached down between them, fingers massaging Cersei's cunt, before he rubbed his cock to hardness. It did not take long.

"No," Cersei murmured when he moved to enter her, pulling back then, a small, almost nervous, smile on her features. "I want you to fuck her today," she inclined her head towards Ellaria. "For me."

"Cersei..." Jaime stared at her, and for a moment, Ellaria saw disgust flash across his face, before he buried it deep.

Cersei hummed, pulling Ellaria's head towards the two of them by the hair, forcing Ellaria to half-kneel beside the bed. "Come now, Jaime, for me," she whispered, her words hot against Ellaria's ear. "She wants it. Look at her."

Jaime swallowed, not looking at Ellaria. "Cersei."

"Jaime."

Ellaria found their ability to communicate with each other using only their names fascinating, if she was being honest with herself, and when she found little else fascinating anymore, beyond the thoughts she indulged of every way she might kill Cersei Lannister.

"Fuck her," Cersei hissed, and Jaime moved forward.

Ellaria swallowed hard, closed her eyes.

"I'm not going to rape her for you, sister," Jaime hissed against Ellaria's skin, and Ellaria opened her eyes, stared at the blond man inches away from her. "If you want that, you can call in your creature to do it for you."

Cersei pouted, letting Ellaria flop down onto the bed between them. "But she wants it," she protested, nudging Ellaria with her foot. "Don't you, you slut?"

Ellaria swallowed thickly, thought of the difference between being raped by the Mountain and raped by Jaime Lannister.

"Yes," she whispered.

Jaime flinched away from her in disgust, climbing off the bed and reaching for his trousers, where they lay in a huddle on the ground.

"Jaime," Cersei's voice was filled with dire warning, but her brother ignored her, pulling on his trousers without a word.

He didn't respond, pulled his sheathed sword up off the ground and strapped it to his side with a soldier's finesse, his back still to her.

"Jaime."

He spun round then, and Ellaria blinked in surprise at the anger on his face. "Why the fuck haven't you killed her yet, Cersei?"

Cersei blinked at him, clearly perplexed. "What do you mean?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Jaime made a noise of frustration, pulling his stumped arm through the sleeve of his shirt. "Olenna Tyrell is dead, and you've managed to forget about her. Kill this one too, for fuck's sake."

Cersei's fingers twisted hard into the smooth flesh of Ellaria's chin. "I don't want to kill her and forget about her," Cersei murmured hoarsely. "Not after what she did to Myrcella."

Jaime closed his eyes, breathed out slowly through his nose. "Why?" he demanded. "What difference does it make? You had your revenge on her already."

Cersei lifted her chin. "Our revenge," she said, climbing off of the bed and leaving Ellaria panting over it to reach out for her brother. He stood stiffly as she embraced him. "For our daughter."

Jaime let out a sound that was almost pained.

Ellaria did not regret killing their daughter, she thought, watching the two of them. That was the lesson Cersei had wanted her to take to heart. That they both felt the same way, losing their children.

Myrcella had been beautiful and light and sweet, everything Cersei said she was, and Ellaria did not regret killing her for a single moment.

She merely regretted that her own daughter had died because of it.

"But what is the point of parading her around as your pet now?" Jaime asked tiredly. "Why, when we've had our revenge?"

Cersei stared at him for a long moment, open mouthed.

Jaime snorted in disgust, moving toward the door, ignoring his sister when she called out her brother's name in a sort of plea as he shoved it open, pushed past her.

Cersei stormed back to the bed, fell upon it, inches away from Ellaria, shoved Ellaria away from her in disgust, moving away from the bed and reaching for one of the silken robes hanging beside it.

Ellaria resolutely did not feel a petty sort of pleasure at Cersei's unhappiness. It wasn't nearly enough dissatisfaction to feel pleasure over, after all.

Ellaria wondered if it was down to Jaime Lannister's peculiar sense of honor, that they fucked here in his chambers in the White Tower rather than in those belonging to the Queen. Cersei seemed to consider them her chambers as well, spending more time asleep here than in the rooms that had once housed her husband.

Not that she slept much, as she had once told Ellaria, to which Ellaria could now attest. The woman spent long hours awake, almost as long as Ellaria, whispering under her breath once Jaime slept about the things she would do to her enemies, compiling lists in her mind while he was awake.

Ellaria hated that they shared that passion, just as she hated that they shared their daughters' losses.

~

When Jaime returned from the battle, there was a sort of bloodlust about him that Ellaria could instantly see had Cersei's cunt wet. It had nothing to do with the fact that Ellaria's mouth was in it when it happened.

Ellaria lapped at Cersei's cunt and pretended that her tongue was Oberyn's favorite spear, and still couldn't find satisfaction with it, beyond the obscure knowledge that Cersei saw this as another example of her complete control over her pet.

Let her think she had control. Let her think Ellaria was nothing, as her daughter rotted away in the Black Cells.

Jaime looked at the two of them in disgust, and then climbed onto the bed beside them, pushing Ellaria out of the way and taking her place, shoving his cock into his sister with little ceremony at all, ignoring the pained noise that Cersei made in response.

He fucked her quickly, mercilessly, and Ellaria listened to the sounds of Cersei's pain and pleasure, and thought about the sword hanging from Jaime's belt as he fucked her.

She thought about it so long and so hard that when Cersei went off to make marriage plans or battle plans or whatever it was she did with Euron Greyjoy in the privacy of what had once been the Tower of the Hand, Ellaria found herself wandering into Ser Jaime's chambers.

She had never been in here without Cersei.

Cersei let her wander sometimes, when she was bored with her, when she didn't want the reminder of her pet's obedience distracting her from an upcoming battle, because she knew that there was only one place Ellaria might willingly flee to her on her own, and Ellaria would never go there.

The Black Cells beckoned ominously every other day, the thought of what her daughter's corpse might now smell like filling her nostrils of its own accord, but today, Ellaria sought out Jaime Lannister.

He was seated at a desk, writing something in his slow, awkward script. Ellaria wondered if he had been writing a love letter to his sister, that day in Dorne, when she had told him that they couldn't choose who they fell in love with, and the people of Dorne understood that sort of thing.

Today, he didn't appear to be writing any love letter, if the look of fury on his face was anything to go by, and she almost slipped back out of the room the way she came.

Jaime's sword flying out of its sheath and pressing against her neck stopped her, and she glanced up at the man as he panted, towering over her, and the fury on his face only growing.

"What are you doing in here?"

Ellaria smiled thinly. "I can leave, if I make you uncomfortable. Or you could kill me, if that will absolve you."

Jaime frowned at her. "I don't know how you managed to convince my sister to let you out of that cell..." he began, and then paused, for which Ellaria was grateful, because she thought that if he asked her to explain it, he might kill her anyway, and she couldn't have that. Not yet.

His next words, though, surprised her.

"Olenna Tyrell killed my son on the day of his wedding. Did you know?"

Ellaria shook her head. A trickle of blood ran down her throat, and she watched Jaime's eyes flit to it, then back up to her own. "I would offer you my condolences for not getting the revenge you ought to have, but I would think the words would sound hollow, coming from me."

Jaime laughed humorlessly, turning away from her and running his hand through his hair. Ellaria found her eyes drawn to the other hand, the golden one that hung limply by his side, as it always did, as if he were afraid to use it.

"You didn't tell her this," Ellaria surmised.

If he had, she doubted Cersei would look so adoring, if indeed it could be called that, every time she glanced in her twin's direction.

Jaime swallowed thickly, glanced up at her. "I suppose you think I am a coward for keeping it from her," he said, and Ellaria didn't blink. He laughed again. "The old woman told me that she regretted allowing Cersei's...disease to spread as she had. That one day, I would regret it, too. It was strange...at the time; all I could think of was something similar Cersei had said to me. Something about our brother, Tyrion."

Ellaria hummed against the blade on her throat. Jaime didn't seem to notice.

It occurred to her then, that she might be able to overpower him. He was clearly distraught, and she could turn the blade on him easily enough, if she were willing to sacrifice one of her hands for it.

She didn't move.

She had seen the obvious discomfort Jaime Lannister showed at his sister's increasingly insane antics, had seen the way he tried to push them behind the love he held so dearly for a mad woman willing to kill everyone if it meant she might become queen of the ashes.

She had never truly considered, before this moment, that he might doubt his sister enough to do something about it. And that was because she had spent this long comparing Jaime and Cersei and their fucked up feelings for each other to what she and Oberyn had felt for each other, when in reality, they were not the same at all.

She would have watched Oberyn descend into madness and darkness without a word if he had lived to do so. Indeed, she had watched him spend years of his life plotting to avenge his dead sister, and had not tried to pull him back from the brink.

Cersei Lannister had already peaked madness.

She felt a victorious laugh bubbling up in her throat at the thought, but she held it at bay, reminded herself of what Tyene had looked like, eyes glazed over with death.

She could not afford to make a mistake.

"If I tell her that the woman I pled for mercy for killed her son, I will see the monster Olenna Tyrell feared," he said, breathless. "I suppose I am a coward."

Ellaria pushed her neck forward onto the dagger pressed against it, ignored the strangled sound of surprise that emerged from Jaime as she did so. She didn't give him time to pull away, pushed their lips together in a crushing kiss that had him jerking against her.

He tried to pull away at first, and then pushed into the kiss, and Ellaria blinked in surprise as he held onto it for much longer than she was expecting.

The passion that moved between them as they kissed was not born of lust, she decided, as her lips opened to invite him in. She knew that he had eyes only for his sister, just as she had eyes for nothing but her vengeance. It was a passion born only of anger, of fear, and Ellaria supposed that was one thing they each had a right to.

Jaime was the first to pull back, looking disgusted as his lips came away bloody, as if he had needed that reminder of who she was.

"You murdered my daughter," he whispered, shoving her away. "You stood in front of me and told me that Dorne didn't care who one fell in love with, and then you murdered our love."

Ellaria frowned at him. "I didn't do it because she was yours," she said pointedly.

Jaime looked away.

Ellaria gave him a thin smile. "Tell me, Ser Jaime, when you described for your sister what it was like to watch your daughter die, did you tell her of the pain of holding Myrcella in your arms as the life drained from her?"

Jaime stared at her, breaths coming in ragged pants.

"I have you to thank for the fact that I could not hold my daughter in my arms as she died," she whispered.

Jaime moved away from her as if her closeness burned him, moved toward the door of his chambers and opened it for her.

"Get the fuck out," he ordered her, still not meeting her gaze, and Ellaria sent him a serene smile as she walked past him, out the door and into the corridor beyond, ignoring the flabbergasted look of the serving girl standing in the hall, who had clearly heard something of the exchange.


	2. TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely sure how happy I am with the melodrama at the end of this chapter, but ah well.

The next time Cersei asked her brother to fuck Ellaria, he did.

Ellaria had not been expecting it. She had expected the peculiar honor that had him keeping Olenna Tyrell's secret to hold out longer here.

But then, she supposed, if there was anyone who could make him abandon whatever principles he had left, it was the woman who had burned an entire sept to the ground.

"Yes," Cersei chanted from her place on the bed beside them, watching them with a critical, cool eye, and Ellaria recognized her touch where it burned her skin, just below her hip. "She loves it, Jaime. Look at her."

Jaime grunted, and when Ellaria lifted her eyes to his face, he saw that he wasn't looking at her at all, that his eyes were only for Cersei, in this moment.

~

Jaime ignored her in the remaining days he spent in King's Landing. Ignored her when she stood at Cersei's side before him, not looking at her, not acknowledging her when Cersei did. Refused to fuck her when she came to Jaime's rooms with Cersei, and didn't respond when Cersei asked him about her.

Ellaria wondered if the strange tint that had entered his eyes since the day she had kissed him belonged to guilt or fury, and was beginning to realize that, however much the thought of turning the twins on each other excited her, it was a lost cause.

She might not get her revenge from Jaime Lannister, no matter how poetic it would have been.

He left four days after that, to fight Daenerys and a slew of her forces in the Stormlands, and Ellaria tried to put her thoughts of him from her mind. The Lannister forces may have been weakened by the decoy they had served in Casterly Rock and Daenerys' forces when she and her dragons had born down on them on their return from the Reach, but Cersei was just as much of a threat now as she had been when she had killed Tyene.

Ellaria wondered if Tyene's flesh was fully rotting now. She did not have the courage to go down there and look, and did not know if it was because she was terrified of what she might see, or terrified that Cersei would not let her back up again.

Without Jaime in King's Landing, the place was far more worrying, and Ellaria hated that she had that weakness at all, that she should find Jaime Lannister's presence comforting compared to the presence of any other monster in this city.

But Jaime Lannister being by his sister's side, protecting her as was his duty in the Kingsguard, watching her with guarded, increasingly worried eyes, was better than watching the Mountain skulk along behind Cersei wherever she went, and wherever she dragged Ellaria.

It was hope, that she might have what she was living for, when the Mountain made such a thought seem so hopeless.

It was better than lying with only Cersei in her bed each night, in the knowledge that the Mountain stood just outside the door, ready to come in and bash in Ellaria's head as he had bashed in Oberyn's.

Sitting there in the dark, as Cersei didn't sleep but tried to keep up the pretense of it, as Ellaria fell into an exhausted sleep sometime during the witching hours, each night contemplating whether she might crush in Cersei's skull when the woman finally closed her eyes.

Cersei never fell asleep before her.

~

"I was meant to marry Elia Martell," Jaime mused, when he returned from his most recent battle, a failure, to find Euron Greyjoy victorious in more ways than one. "And she would have married Oberyn."

Ellaria stiffened at the thought of that woman married to her lover. At the mad woman who now ruled some of Westeros being with her lover, with the man for whom she had born children.

Jaime bit his lip, reaching out and petting almost gently at Ellaria's hair. "Sometimes I wonder what our lives would have been like, what she would have been like..."

Ellaria sniffed when Jaime did not continue. "Wondering what might have been is a fruitless endeavor, Ser Jaime."

He sighed, pulled her close. Ellaria raised a brow at how gentle he was with her, wondered if Cersei and Jaime had ever had the luxury of gentle sex, during all of their hurried moments together while she was married to Robert Baratheon.

"She's really going to marry him," Jaime panted against Ellaria's skin. "I truly didn't think she would. I'm going to fucking lose her again, now she's fucking him, and I have to hear about it from him, the same way I had to hear about her fucking you."

Ellaria laughed wetly, a low, fake sound, and leaned up to kiss his stubbled jaw line in a gesture that wasn't romantic in the least. She could no longer remember the last time she had laughed, the last time she had felt anything at all beyond the drive inside of her. "You expected her to turn around and fuck him over after he won the war for you," she said sweetly, and Jaime pushed inside of her, established a brutal pace that had Ellaria's teeth chattering against each other.

"Shut the fuck up," he snapped at her, and Ellaria just laughed again, laughed when he pulled out of her without coming some moments later, still panting, face still twisted in fury, and cock soft.

It was the first time he had approached her on his own, and Ellaria wondered if it was some misplaced attempt at revenge on his sister, or still revenge against her.

~

"Are you well, Your Grace?" one of Cersei's maidservants asked, and Ellaria pulled herself from her troubled thoughts, glanced up just in time to see Cersei rushing toward the chamber pot in the corner of her brother's chambers, sicking up into it.

Cersei sat up some moments later, body still heaving, glaring at the women gathered around her, asking if she was well.

"Get away," she hissed at all of them, through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."

And then she met Ellaria's gaze above the heads of all of her ladies, and Ellaria wondered not for the first time what it was about her that Cersei found so intriguing that she could not part with Ellaria for a single second.

For the first time, however, she thought she knew, for she could see the same dead eyes reflected back at her from Cersei's sallow features that she saw every morning in the mirror, reminding her of everything she had lost and everything she had yet to gain.

She wondered if it was comforting for Cersei, to see that look in another woman's eyes. To know that she was not so great a monster that there were not other women in the world like her.

If that was why Ellaria wasn't languishing in the dungeons, watching her daughter rot.

Cersei stood to her feet, wiped at her mouth idly.

The door burst open just as she was steady again, a pale faced herald stepping into the room. "Your Grace," he stammered out, "the fleet has returned."

Cersei's eyes narrowed at the look of terror on his face, and she pushed past him, gesturing for Ellaria to follow her as they walked at a rather quick pace out of the Keep, to the lookout tower from where all of the harbor could be seen.

"I...I don't understand," Cersei breathed out, staring at the open harbor and the few crippled ships riding into it, Euron's flagship the only one amongst them still recognizable in any real way. "What did she do?"

Ellaria bit her lip, thought that the charred husks of the ships spoke for themselves.

Cersei ground her teeth so hard that Ellaria grimaced at the sound. Watched with fists clenched as Euron Greyjoy climbed out of his ship and onto a dock, a look of fury on his features. His men trickled out onto the docks behind him, so very few of them.

Ellaria felt a thrill at the pain it brought to Cersei's face, but when Cersei next spoke, her words had nothing to do with the scene below her.

"Jaime," Cersei whispered hoarsely, a look of terror crossing her features.

It took a moment for Ellaria to understand Cersei's terror; Jaime was in charge of his queen's armies, not her fleet, and it had been the fleet that Daenerys had attacked.

If Daenerys had managed all of this to Euron's fleet with her dragons, where had her army been?

~

"Her Grace, Daenerys Stormborn, First of Her Name, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and of the Andals and of Mereen, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains, has sent me to negotiate with you on her behalf, Cersei."

Cersei stared at her brother for a long moment, and then laughed. "My, that is an awful mouthful of names, isn't it? Your new queen must think very highly of herself, to force her subjects to use so many of them."

Beside her, Euron barked out a laugh, gazing at Cersei with something that looked to Ellaria suspiciously like adoration. They neither of them looked like two pretend monarchs whose kingdom was boxed in on all sides by Daenerys Targaryen's fleet, her dragons patrolling the causeways leading out of King's Landing, without an army and with nothing more than a crippled fleet standing between them and the full weight of Daenerys' wrath.

Ellaria wondered for the first time if perhaps she and Cersei were not as similar as she had feared.

Tyrion gritted his teeth, didn't even glance in Euron's direction. "Sister, you have perhaps as many titles attributed to you; Daenerys simply chooses the ones the people call her."

Cersei smirked, threading her fingers through Ellaria's blouse, where the woman stood beside her throne. Tyrion looked uncomfortable as he glanced from Cersei to Ellaria, and then back to his sister, but he said nothing, merely gritted his teeth.

"Tell me, Tyrion, did you instruct your little queen to attack Casterly Rock because it was the best fort, strategically, to go after, or because you couldn't bear the thought of it in my hands instead of your own?"

Tyrion licked his lips. "The Targaryen Queen understood what was to be gained from taking the Rock."

"I'm done bandying words with you, half man," Cersei hissed at him. "I decided I would no longer acknowledge you as worthy of my time when you killed your own father, your own nephew."

Ellaria thought of what Jaime had told her, that Olenna had been the one to kill Joffrey, and almost voiced the words. She didn't, merely nuzzled into Cersei's touch and ignored the look on Tyrion's face.

"Tell me, dwarf," Euron spoke up then, "Does this Daenerys have so frigid a cunt, that she can only inspire half men and eunuchs to her cause?"

"That might have proven a fatal mistake, dear sister," Tyrion warned her, and Ellaria was rather impressed with his ability to ignore Euron Greyjoy. The only thing that gave him away was tic of his eyebrow. "I've never been quite as deadly as when I am not taken seriously, after all."

Cersei rolled her eyes. "Do you have Jaime, brother, or did you let the dragon cunt kill him?"

Tyrion grimaced, and Ellaria raised a brow, wondered what that meant. Wondered if that was merely offense at his queen being called a cunt, or if Ser Jaime Lannister was not being kept in the sort of way he knew Cersei would forgive.

"We have him."

Cersei nodded. "Very well," she said, clearly struggling to sound gracious, "We will accept my brother Jaime's return to King's Landing, unmolested, within the fortnight. I am certain your queen found better luck across the Narrow Sea."

Ellaria watched as Euron's face twisted into one of confusion, at Cersei's words.

Tyrion gaped at her, stuttered out a laugh. "Pardon?" he asked incredulously.

Cersei blinked at him. "I think you heard me, dear brother."

Tyrion cleared his throat.

"Cersei," he began, drawing out his next words slowly, as if he worried that Cersei had gone quite simple since placing the crown upon her head. He didn't know the half of it. "Queen Daenerys' entire fleet is bearing down upon King's Landing in this moment, and her three dragons are ready to attack you at any moment," he explained. "Euron Greyjoy's men may be rebuilding his fleet from the defectors of Yara's, but he is no position to defeat Daenerys' fleet. I am here as a courtesy, and because my queen does not wish to waste innocent lives on a foregone fight."

Cersei sniffed, tangled her fingers in Ellaria's hair. "A courtesy?" she repeated. "And here I thought kinslayers were not capable of that sort of nicety. If you're not here to accept your full, and total, surrender, I am sure you remember how to leave the Keep." She gestured toward the door.

Tyrion gritted his teeth. "Cersei, don't be a fool."

Silence fell. Beside the Iron Throne, even Euron looked worried.

Cersei's fingers stopped playing in Ellaria's hair, and a moment later she was on her feet, storming down the steps from the Iron Throne to where her brother stood before it. Ellaria's head fell back against the Iron Throne with a distant thud as Cersei let go of her, and she grimaced.

Cersei halted before her brother, panting loudly.

"I am not the one following the Mad King's daughter," she informed him. "I am not the one who swore loyalty to a woman who would gladly burn Jaime alive for his part in her father's demise. I am not the fool between the two of us, brother."

He squinted at her, looking to be caught somewhere between humor and despair. "This is a fight you cannot win," he told her. "The Queen did not even entertain the possibility that you would fight. Cersei..." he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I understand that losing Jaime seems terrifying to you, but there are other things besides your cunt to think with..."

"Get out," Cersei hissed at him, through clenched teeth. "Get out, Halfman, and tell the Mad King's daughter my message."

He hesitated, gave her a slight, mocking bow. "The Queen will give you a week to come to your senses, sister."

~

"They won't kill him yet," Cersei said, and sounded as if she were struggling to convince herself as she pressed into the gentle folds of Ellaria's skin. "She may hate him for killing the Mad King, but Tyrion will convince her that he is worth more alive than dead."

She clung to Ellaria, like a child, and Ellaria petted her hair.

"Tyrion seems like a man of loyalty," she consoled. "I think you can count on him to keep your brother alive, inasmuch as he can spar with the dragon girl's thirst for vengeance."

She thought of her daughter, wondered, if Cersei had blamed Jaime for Myrcella's death as he had confessed to Ellaria he feared she would, if Tyrion or anyone would have been able to save him from her ire.

It occurred to her, as she sat there petting Cersei's hair, that she could easily snap the woman's neck. Could kill her while she lay in this position of vulnerability, because the Mountain was outside the door and would not reach her in time, and her brother was slotted for death.

She could kill Cersei as she had never been able to do so when they lay in the dark together before this, because Cersei had let down her guard for these few precious moments.

She should kill her.

But it wouldn't be enough, now. She had endured the loss of her lover, of her children, of Dorne. She was in this for good, and until everything Cersei had won was stolen from her, until her victory against Ellaria had turned to ashes in her mouth, it wouldn't be enough.

She could kill Cersei now, but she would only be making way for Euron Greyjoy to snap up the Iron Throne. And she might have not cared enough, might have let him have it, save for that he was Cersei's ally, and he had killed Obara and Nymeria, had brought she and Tyene to Cersei.

That was where she had gone wrong with Myrcella, Ellaria reflected, as she pulled a little at Cersei's hair, felt the other woman shift in annoyance against her.

She could remember Oberyn's fury, the day he had spoken to Cersei in the gardens of King's Landing, before Joffrey's wedding. Could well recall his fury at Cersei's worries that her daughter was being mistreated, in danger, in Dorne, and it had not been Cersei he was angry with.

No, it had been the war, and the base, cruel things that it drove men to do against children and mothers, that Cersei Lannister might suspect his family of harming Myrcella Baratheon.

Ellaria had remembered those words as she mixed together the poison she required to kill Myrcella, remembered them as she watched Jaime Lannister sail away with his daughter and her lover's nephew, and had tasted them like the bile that rose in her throat as she took the antidote to that poison.

It had felt like spitting in Oberyn's face, killing Myrcella, after what he had said about little girls not being harmed in Dorne. After she had realized he wasn't talking about Myrcella at all, but about his sweet sister, brutalized and killed in King's Landing, her children, both babies.

But she had not thought of any other way to achieve vengeance on those who had stolen her Oberyn from her with the same creature that had stolen away his happiness, years ago, and so Ellaria had killed the girl anyway, knowing as she did so that Oberyn would never forgive her.

If she had just waited, if she had not been so tempestuous, so eager to see the Lannisters brought low; she might have achieved a far greater vengeance on them.

And that thought, along with the image seared into Ellaria's mind of her daughter, the one and only time she had had the courage to go down to the Black Cells and see what remained of her, staid her hand, now.

She tried not to let herself think that there might be another reason why she was letting Cersei Lannister live when she had a chance to kill her. Tried not to look at the woman's stomach. It was too early now for there to be any sign, but Ellaria knew the other signs well enough.

Myrcella's sweet face, surprised, when Ellaria kissed her on the lips, flashed through Ellaria's mind, and she kept petting Cersei's hair, closing her eyes and heaving a small sigh.

A knock at the door. "Your Grace? Euron Greyjoy wishes to speak with you."

Cersei heaved a bone deep sigh. "Send him in," she muttered, and there was a pause on the other side of the door, before it pulled open and Euron stepped into the room.

He raised an appreciative brow at the sight of his naked betrothed in Ellaria's arms, let out a low whistle, before bowing before his queen.

"Your Grace," he said, "I came to offer my condolences and my services, not necessarily in that order," he told her, winking. The effect was lost on Cersei, who was not even looking at him. His smile dimmed, somewhat. "But I wonder how we are planning to defeat the dragon bitch, with her fleet surrounding our great city, sitting between me and my fleet?"

Cersei smiled thinly. "I was asked a similar question once, Euron," she told him, sitting up. "Stannis' army stood to destroy all of King's Landing, to take it from my son. And so I destroyed him, and then I destroyed the people who helped me keep that victory from him. When heretics sought to take my son from me, I blew them up. The dragon queen has taken my brother from me. She will not succeed in taking this city, as well. You may have my word on that."

Euron's teeth clicked. "May I ask Your Grace how?"

Cersei's smile grew. "The Mad King's daughter is not the only one who knows of the uses of fire, my lover," she explained. "But that doesn't matter, because right now, she has my brother, and she has her fleet standing between yours and this city, and while all of that is happening, you will not see this fucking throne come an inch closer to you. The Tyrells thought to make such a gain, when they saw me weak. Look at them now."

Euron pursed his lips. "I will get him back for you," Euron promised. "Your brother, and my fleet, where it has been rebuilt and sits beyond Daenerys'. But when I return, you will be my wife."

Cersei ground her teeth. "I don't want you to get my brother back for me, Lord Euron," she informed him primly. "I've another task in mind for you."

Euron raised a brow, clearly intrigued. "Then name it, Your Grace, and it shall be yours."

~

Ellaria took a deep breath, staring up at the great monument that was the stairs leading up to Dragonstone. Beside her, Missandei watched Ellaria with a look too much like pity for her taste, and she wanted nothing more than to rail at the girl, to crush her head against one of the stones nearby.

These last few months had been a lesson in controlling her impulses, however, not the lesson Cersei had wanted her to learn but the one she had learned, and she did no such thing.

She hesitated a moment longer, and then took one step in front of the other, following Missandei as the girl led her up to the great entrance of Dragonstone, a place as dreary now as it had seemed inviting when Varys had first told her of this dragon queen across the sea.

With each step, she calculated in her mind where Euron was now. Cersei had not let her know the entire plan, because perhaps a part of her disturbed mind still recognized that Ellaria was not to be fully trusted, had not been fully broken, but she knew enough.

Knew that Euron Greyjoy and a few of his best men had slipped out of the harbor of King's Landing under the cover of darkness, had made their way past Daenerys' fleet by clinging to the bottom of a smuggler's rig. Knew that he had lured one of her dragons away from King's Landing with Maester Quyburn's concoction.

Knew that he was reunited with his rebuilt fleet now, the deed his queen had demanded of him in return for an earlier wedding done. Waiting only for Cersei's word before he turned the full force of his fleet upon Daenerys'.

She wanted her brother back first, though.

The box that a dozen Lannister soldiers were struggling to carry between them hung ominously in the air behind Ellaria as she walked, and she did not dare to turn around and look at it, as Daenerys' Unsullied kept doing, clearly curious.

She merely walked, head held high, reciting in her mind the words Cersei had instructed her to say, the moment she came face to face with the dragon queen.

She had considered not saying them. Had considered letting Jaime die and asking Daenerys for mercy, but things had gone beyond that now. There was no guarantee that Daenerys could win this war, while Ellaria had guarantee enough of the lengths Cersei was willing to go to because of her family.

"Ellaria," Daenerys breathed out in surprise as she walked through the double doors to the throne room, finally reaching it after what had seemed an impossible trek.

Ellaria swallowed hard, lifting her chin. Didn't look at Tyrion Lannister, where he stood faithfully beside the woman who wanted to kill his sister. Didn't look at Varys, the man who had convinced her to side with this woman against Cersei, a fool's venture.

"I bring a message from Her Grace Cersei Lannister, First of Her Name, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms," Ellaria announced, and Daenerys' expression went carefully flat.

"I suppose you come to negotiate her surrender for her?" Daenerys asked, and Ellaria saw the flash of anger in her eyes, that Cersei would send Ellaria to do this thing, to mock her in such a way.

Ellaria felt suddenly more tired than she had thought possible, after everything she had gone through.

For a moment, she could not even hold onto her anger for her daughter's death. Let Cersei and Daenerys squabble over this fucking throne; let them ruin themselves fighting over it. She couldn't bring herself to care.

"The Queen of Westeros wishes you to know that if her brother is not returned with me, she will burn the harbor and King's Landing, and you can dig the Iron Throne out of the sea, and your dragons can attempt to destroy the fleet standing outside your door before Euron Greyjoy sacks Dragonstone. And all of this before you can beg your friends to the North to finally become your allies," Ellaria recited dutifully, ignoring the sympathetic looks Lord Varys and Lord Tyrion were sending her way. "I would not test her, if I were you."

Daenerys raised a pale brow; bit back a laugh after glancing at her Hand and seeing the horror on his face. "She would burn her own people...You believe she is mad enough to make good on that threat?"

Ellaria bit the inside of her cheek. "I watched my daughter rot before my eyes for days before Cersei Lannister decided to make me into her pet for the sake of her own amusement," she said bluntly, didn't flinch at Daenerys' shock. "There is nothing she would not do for her family."

Daenerys glanced at Tyrion, and Ellaria amended, "for those she considers to be part of her family."

She couldn't remember her other daughters' last words. And they had all been her girls, no matter that they had different mothers. She doubted someone like Cersei could understand that, but then she thought of Ser Jaime, of how he was both Cersei's brother and her lover, and thought that perhaps she might be wrong about that.

Tyene's last words, Ellaria remembered all too clearly, the girl's frightened, "Mama?" as Cersei shoved that horrid gag back onto her lips after giving her the kiss of death. But Obara's? Nymeria's? She didn't know, couldn't remember at all, and it haunted her.

She wondered if Cersei had intended that. If Cersei remembered what her last words had been to her beloved daughter.

"Thousands will die..." Daenerys whispered hoarsely.

Ellaria barked out a laugh. "When Cersei Lannister burnt down the Sept of Baelor, hundreds did die," she explained. "When her father became the most feared man in Westeros, it was because he had demonstrated just how willing to kill innocents he was."

Daenerys swallowed. "Ellaria, we can keep you here. Suggest a trade, of you for Jaime Lannister. I'm not certain how much desire he still has to be reunited with his sister, but I'm certain he can make up for her loss of you, and she seems quite insistent on retaining him."

Ellaria snorted. "I have nothing to return to here, Your Grace," she said coolly. "And I understand you have found some lord of the marshes to take on the position of Prince of Dorne."

A flash of pain crossed over Daenerys' face. "Ellaria-"

"Her Grace wishes a response by nightfall, Your Grace," Ellaria said quietly. "If I do not return with one, she will assume that this is a message from me, that you do not wish to honor her terms, and she will burn King's Landing anyway."

Daenerys swallowed thickly. She was a foolish girl, Ellaria thought uncharitably, coming here and thinking that she could simply take Westeros for herself because of her bloodline.

Cersei had no real rights to the Iron Throne, but she was mad enough to keep it. Ellaria was not quite certain yet that Daenerys was.

"She would kill you as gladly as she kills other innocents," Daenerys warned her. "Whatever it is you think to gain by staying at her side, I hope that it is worth it, in your mind."

"To demonstrate to Your Grace Queen Cersei's resolve to do just as she has threatened," Ellaria said, "I was instructed to bring you a gift."

Daenerys' features went white as Ellaria nodded to the soldiers standing behind her, carrying the wooden crate between six of them. They nodded back, moved to open it with the blunt edges of their swords.

Ellaria swallowed quickly as the massive head of a dragon tumbled out of the crate, rolled onto the floor of Dragonstone, and came to a stop just inches from where Daenerys had leapt out of her throne and rushed down to meet it.

"Drogon," she whispered brokenly, and Ellaria saw a flash of true fear in her eyes before she tempered it behind grief, kneeling down before the half crushed head of her dragon with a keening sound that Ellaria did not want to think too long upon.

And then Daenerys lifted her head, expression hardening. "I do not respond well to threats," she gritted out.

Ellaria smiled thinly, reminded of Oberyn's fire, of how he had never responded well to threats either. "Neither does Queen Cersei. Give her what she wants, and you will not have to."

Daenerys straightened, expression impassive now. "She has killed one of my children. What is to stop me from retaliating and killing her lover?"

Ellaria felt a pang, deep in her chest, where she had resolved not to feel anything more. "Knowing what she is capable of, Your Grace, if I could have spared the lives of any of my girls," she murmured, emotion causing her voice to tremble for the first time since that horrid gag had come off, "by giving her anything she wanted, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Dorne, you, this fucking kingdom. Let her have it. Let her have the Kingslayer. It is a small price to pay."

Daenerys closed her eyes, swallowed thickly. "My condolences, on the loss of your daughter, Ellaria Sand."

Ellaria lifted her chin, cocked her head. "Where is Jaime Lannister?"

Daenerys sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose. "Missandei," she called out finally, and the girl whom Ellaria distantly remembered as her bosom companion hurried forward. "Go and tell the guards to release Ser Jaime."

The girl hesitated for only a moment. "Yes, Your Grace."

They stood in awkward silence as the girl departed, as Daenerys turned back to her beloved dragon's decapitated head and knelt before it, placed her hand on it. Her hand began to shake.

Ellaria lifted her chin as she felt Lord Varys' eyes on her, glanced at the Lannister soldiers where they stood behind what was left of the wooden crate, watching the dragon queen in terror.

They hadn't yet realized that they served a worse mistress, Ellaria knew. They hadn't realized that only one was threatening to burn them alive.

Jaime Lannister entered the room just as Daenerys' shoulders were beginning to shake from her tears.

Ellaria had expected her to burn him alive. Had expected her to refuse to meet Cersei's demands. She hadn't realized until this moment that only one of the two queens fighting over the throne would burn heaven and earth to have what she wanted.

Ellaria moved forward as Jaime's eyes widened at the sight of her, as the two Dothraki warriors holding him shoved him forward, and he fell unsteadily to his knees in the middle of the throne room.

His golden hand was missing.

"Come along, Ser Jaime," Ellaria said, reaching a hand beneath his armpit to help him upright. "Your sister is waiting for you."

Tyrion hesitated, reaching a hand out toward his brother, hesitating again as he glanced toward where Daenerys still knelt, ignoring all of them. "Jaime..."

Ellaria eyed him disdainfully. He ought to have killed his brother before Cersei could mount this little rescue. It would have been kinder than sending him back into his mad sister's arms.

She thought of Tyene, wondered if she would have had the strength to kill the girl aboard their ship back to Dorne if she had known what Cersei planned to do with her.

She shook her head. It didn't matter. Tyene was dead, and Jaime was still alive, and she could blame Tyrion for that.

~

Stealing the poison required a level of secrecy that Ellaria was not certain she would be able to accomplish until the moment the deed was done.

She knew that, however much Cersei now believed her to be nothing more than broken creature, Maester Quyburn, the wicked, strange little fellow, watched her with eyes as suspicious as Jaime Lannister's, and if she were not careful, she would end up as nothing more than another of his projects, down in the Black Cells.

She had heard about the sorts of experiments he conducted down here, on former Tyrell ladies now without a queen to serve and serving girls that no one would miss. What she heard about them might have been enough to horrify her, before, but she felt nothing but numb disgust, now.

She stole the poison while Quyburn was conducting another of his experiments on the dragon carcasses beneath the Keep. He wouldn't miss it just now, she thought, for his queen was growing a bit bored with her first creature, too enamored by the second.

She recognized the poison from her lover's extensive research of it, knew just the amount to steal to take down a horse. She was taking no chances with this.

Getting the poison inside its target was the most difficult part. She couldn't give him the kiss of death, as she might have managed with Cersei and Jaime, even if such a death was far too poetic for the both of them, and he didn't eat or sleep, as far as she could tell, and never took off his armor.

And so, with a rather heavy heart, she walked into one of the Black Cells.

Her daughter's corpse was not in this one. Instead, inside, lay the shivering form of a Tyrell girl, her clothes in tatters, her body nothing more than a broken toy now. She whimpered when she saw Ellaria, and Ellaria affected a look of concern and reassurance that she wasn't quite certain she wore correctly, anymore.

She convinced the girl to use the poison, told her that it would be a gentle death, a merciful one, and spread it on her skin with loving hands that hadn't been so since Ellaria had not been allowed to touch her daughter's corpse.

The girl screamed as the concoction came into contact with her skin, and Ellaria left her there, for when next the strange maester came to conduct another of his experiments with Ser Gregor and one of the girls he had locked up down there.

She would live long enough, Ellaria knew. It was a slow acting poison, in the first few days, easily spreadable.

Ellaria paused outside the cell where her daughter still lay, placed a hand on the door, but did not open it.

"Very soon, my love," she whispered hoarsely, and hated how low and cold her voice had become, in recent months. "It is almost over, now."

Ellaria had worn Ser Jaime's riding gloves as she applied the poison. She burned them in Cersei's fireplace as she watched the brother and sister have yet another argument. She wondered if they even knew what they were fighting over.

~

"Cersei, don’t fucking do this," Jaime hissed at his sister, as she sat primly on the Iron Throne after giving the order to her peculiar maester.

Burn the city before the Targaryen’s armies took it from its queen. Burn the city before the last of Euron Greyjoy’s fleet was decimated. Burn them all, lest they be forced to subject themselves to the Mad King’s daughter.

Cersei turned cool eyes on her brother, not noticing as her courtiers fled the Keep in a stampede, tripping over each other to get out before Cersei's order had been carried out.

Ellaria did not move, where she stood behind the Iron Throne, watching the horror on Jaime's face give way to a resigned lack of surprise.

"I won't let her take this from us, Jaime," Cersei murmured, getting up off of the throne and pulling him into her arms. He flinched back from her, disgusted. "It's no different from what I did to the Sept, and you stood by me then."

He stumbled back, one step, then another. "I..." His mouth opened and closed.

Cersei smiled, expression almost gentle. "Jaime," she said, reaching for him again.

His hand lowered to the hilt of his sword, fluttered against it almost unconsciously. Cersei's eyes tracked the movement, widened.

"Don't do this, Cersei," he pleaded. "Please don't do this."

Cersei lifted her chin, nodded to her pet maester. "It is done," she told Jaime, and the maester nodded along with this, turned to go.

Jaime swallowed, fist clenching around the hilt of Widow's Wail.

"You won't kill me, Jaime," Cersei whispered, pulling back from him. "You won't."

Jaime swallowed hard. "Take back the order," he told her, nodding to where Quyburn still stood, watching the three of them like a hawk.

Cersei lifted her chin. "Are you going to stab me in the back, your own sister, like you killed the Mad King?"

"Do you truly want to be queen of the ashes?" Jaime asked her, bone dry.

Cersei hesitated, and that was enough for Jaime, after months and months of denying what Olenna Tyrell and every other sane person had tried to warn him of. He moved forward, wrapping his new, golden hand around his sister's throat.

"I'm pregnant with your child," Cersei gasped out, eyes blown wide with shock.

Never mind that she was planning to blow that child up with the rest of them, Ellaria thought wryly.

Jaime gritted his teeth, stared at his sister with wide eyes at the admission, his golden hand faltering where it already lay around her neck.

Cersei reached out a hand, placing it over her slightly swollen belly. "Jaime," she whispered brokenly, and Ellaria rolled her eyes, wondered if all of her work had been for nothing. If she had been pathetic and afraid for months for nothing.

The Mountain was dead, but it wasn't enough. He hadn't killed her daughter, he had only killed Oberyn, and that had been so long ago, now.

And then Jaime reached out with his other hand, lifted it to pet at Cersei's neck. She leaned up to kiss him, and his fingers squeezed around her throat.

Cersei choked, the sound loud in the otherwise silent throne room. Maester Quyburn slunk away into the shadows, and Ellaria moved toward Cersei, pulled the knife Cersei kept in the waistline of her gowns out and flew at the maester, stabbed the knife over and over into his neck, screaming as the blood stained her Lannister gown.

She turned back just in time.

"The valonquar," Cersei breathed out, staring up at her brother with wide eyes from which the light slowly dimmed.

Jaime's grip relaxed around his sister's neck, and a moment later he stumbled to his knees, bringing her gently to the floor of the throne room.

"You killed her," Ellaria whispered into the silence that followed, staring at Jaime in numb shock.

She felt alive for the first time since Tyene had died before her very eyes, but she still couldn't move.

Jaime swallowed, glancing down at the corpse in his arms. And it wasn't fair, that he had gotten to hold his lover in his arms as he choked the life from her throat, while Ellaria had not been permitted to touch her daughter as she died.

But this had been what she wanted, to live long enough to watch Cersei's last family turn on her, as Ellaria's family would never do to her.

Doran didn't count, she told herself. He had been a blind fool, and no true brother to Oberyn.

A vein ticked on Jaime's neck. "She was going to blow up the city, rather than hand it over to the Targaryen girl," he said, voice hoarse and low. "I killed the Mad King for wanting to blow up this city. I thought..."

I thought she would come back before that, the words hung in the air, and Ellaria lifted a brow.

"Did you?" she called him out.

Jaime didn't meet her eyes, lowered his sister to the ground and knelt over her with a carefully blank expression.

And then he was moving, ripping Widow's Wail out of its sheath, turning his son's sword on himself. Ellaria's eyes widened at the sight. She darted forward just as the tip of Widow's Wail pressed against his heart, shoving it out of the way, cutting her forearm in the process.

The sword overbalanced between his fingers, flew out of his reach, and Jaime lurched forward, pushed her aside as he reached for it.

Ellaria lunged, falling on him with all of her strength, with a strength she doubted might have taken down a normal man were he not half a cripple and she not possessed with whatever it was that had seeped into her bones the moment she had realized her daughter was dead.

He fought her at first, and then sagged, and she watched as his eyes drew into slits where they stared at his sister, laying on the ground not so far from them. The fight drained out of him, as the fire had drained out of Ellaria the moment her daughter's body stopped convulsing.

Ellaria kicked the sword farther away from him, anyway, held him there, panting.

"You're not going to kill me," Jaime said, tiredly, when the moment drew on into more than Ellaria's thudding heartbeats. He didn't sound surprised.

Somewhere in the distance, Ellaria heard the sound of a dragon's roar. She met Jaime's eyes, saw the realization in them, but spoke anyway.

"Killing the half of you that is left now would be a mercy, Queenslayer," she informed him.

Her daughters had not received mercy. Oberyn had not received mercy. It didn't matter whether he would frown upon her actions now, would find them as unforgivable as Doran had, in his final moments. It didn't matter that a part of her was tired of the constant quest for vengeance.

He cocked his head at that, finally nodded. "Fair enough," he said, in a tired voice that she hadn't realized until that moment he'd been using since she'd been brought as a gift to Cersei. He chuckled. "Fair enough."

The Lannisters were not the only ones to pay their debts, as her lover had once been so fond of saying.


End file.
